


soul/shoulder/ribcage

by stickthelanding



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s15e09 The Trap - Dean Winchester's Prayer Scene, Getting Together, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Second Person, Prose Poem, finale denialist, mentions (but not graphic depiction of) past child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickthelanding/pseuds/stickthelanding
Summary: “his prayers remind you of the ones uttered by the dying. he is always dying a little inside.”a poem for an angel and a righteous man.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	soul/shoulder/ribcage

##  ** I. **

i. you look at the man in your house. he is the only god you believe in even though he hurts you.

ii. it is your last day of being sixteen years old. you look at the boy working reception at the motel. he has kind eyes and it makes your bones feel warm.

iii. you wake up one year older in a motel in the south to the first birthday present you've had in years. he gives you a newspaper clipping and a shovel and tells you to go. you feel carsick the whole way there.

iv. you feel conflicted about the nuns. on the one hand they were terrible people for running a mission but that's not why they have unfinished business. they fell in love and got stabbed for their troubles and you think that's probably what's coming to you. you can picture it, the blade in your chest in a parking lot for bein' too close to a guy. you can taste the iron that'll fill your mouth when they cave your head in. you keep the rosary in your jacket pocket even though the only god you believe in don't care much for pearls. 

v. years pass in a blur and now you're twenty-six and he's missing. sam asks if you killed him and you think about how you wish you had but you're a coward. 

vi. he has the fucking nerve to die for you and when you see him dead on the hospital floor you don't feel relief like you always pictured you would. even in death he takes from you. 

vii. when you light the pyre you pour his favourite whiskey on it. you know he'd hate to see you waste it. you watch the flames grow angry just like he was. 

viii. when the hellhounds tear you apart you hope you'll see him in hell. 

ix. you climb out of your grave and it's not even the first time you've done it except this time you were dead for real. you lie on the grass and remember him burying you alive at fifteen to train you for something like this. 

x. in the gas station mirror you don't see any of the scars he gave you. you look for every single cigarette burn and glass shard mark and don't find any of them.   
  
xi. _you don't think you deserve to be saved_ , the angel says to you, and it's not a question. of course you don't. if nobody ever saved you when you were a kid with permanent black eyes why would they save you at twenty-nine?

xii. they say you're the sword and you don't have a problem believing that. you've always had to be a knife. 

xiii. they say it was written and you are so fucking angry. all you ever wanted was to be safe and loved and warm but what happened to you was written. you were the rifle on the wall and it was always going to end like this. 

xiv. the angel throws you into a fence in a back alley and it feels like a kiss. you chase his fists and hope he touches you more, more, more. when you look up at him from down on your knees you feel like taking communion. 

xv. you try the apple pie life but you feel empty. you figure maybe you're just not meant to have a family and your hands have shed too much blood to be gentle. 

##  **II.**

i. you touch his soul and you can't help yourself. to humans the mark looks like the palm of your hand but if you reached inside his chest again and touched the center of him you'd feel the warmth you left there. you weren't meant to but what else were you supposed to do? you don't know yet that you're not supposed to touch the art in museums.

ii. his prayers remind you of the ones uttered by the dying. he is always dying a little inside.

iii. even when he's not praying his longing radiates through you in deep waves washing over the shores of your consciousness and sometimes you wish you could turn it off or stop listening. your vessel can barely contain the feedback loop of your own longing and his.

iv. on his ribs, you write a love letter he'll never be able to read.

v. when he gets angry it's a nuclear explosion but you can read the distress under the way his jaw sets.

vi. the only times you allow yourself to touch him are when you're fighting or when he's hurt. if you touched him at any other time you're not sure you'd manage to pull away.

vii. he lives out of a duffel bag and in it he carries the violence of how people have tried to own him, to mold him into the man they wanted him to be. when you rebuilt him with your own hands you erased some of the scars it gave him so his body would be his again and when you branded his soul/shoulder/ribcage you weren't claiming him as a possession but as something you would protect.

viii. he looks back at you standing inside a ring of holy fire and you want to sink to your knees in front of him in prayer, regret, apology, desire.

##  **III.**

i. he dies and he dies and he dies and you can never stop it. every time the life drains from his eyes you can feel a part of you dying with him.

ii. you've seen him die before but this is the first time you admit to yourself that you're a coward.

iii. you do taharah on your own and wrap his body with the same trembling hands you used to carry him inside, the same hands you use to tear your shirt on the left side when you stand near the pyre.

iv. when you light the pyre you're catatonic. you know he'd hate to see you like this but you can't help it. you watch the flames grow warm like he was.

v. you grieve for him like a widower even though you don't think you deserve to. you finally get the scope of you and him and it engulfs you.

##  **IV.**

i. when he tells you _welcome home,_ you both know what it means.

ii. he prays to you between the trees and you hear what he isn't saying. each time you embrace each other it gets harder for you to let go.

##  **V.**

i. you pull him out of the void and into your arms. you're done being a coward and you kiss him like you should have a lifetime ago.

ii. you pull him out of the void and into your bed. you listen to his prayers when you get on your knees and you do some praying of your own when he takes you apart and puts you back together again.

iii. you look at the man in your house. you believe in him.

**Author's Note:**

> i would love to know what you thought, and you can also find me on [tumblr](https://tallahasseemp3.tumblr.com)


End file.
